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Note: Tom was born in Mercy Hospital, Rockville Centre, NY.
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WORDS OF REMEMBRANCE (THOMAS G. BARNES, 1959-2009)
[The eulogy written by me for Tommy's Rockville Centre, NY, memorial service on 7 November 2009.]
As many of you know, Tommy was my baby brother...and while I know he probably would not appreciate me calling him that today (“baby brother” OR Tommy for that matter), the fact is that both those things are what he will always be to me. Tommy and I shared a special bond that no one else can claim - we were each other’s only sibling. I’d be surprised if there was any brother more caring, thoughtful, generous, or just plain funny than I was lucky enough to have in Tommy.
I would have to say that relationship did get off to a bit of a rocky start however. When Tommy was only about a week or two old, I bit him. I had my friends over for the afternoon and wanted to show off “my” new baby. Well, he was sleeping and so my friends were unimpressed. Not appreciating his level of cooperation in this, I needed a way to get him to do the “tricks” I knew real babies could do, so my 4 ½ year old mind decided biting his tiny arm was just the thing to make that happen...and indeed it did liven things up quite a bit, just not in the way I’d hoped it would!
Never fear tho, Tommy did get me back for that, although it took him some years to do it. As young teenagers, we were having a “discussion” one day that involved shoving each other on the back steps of our house in Rockville Centre, and he accidentally pushed me through the glass storm door. Good thing it was winter and I had a heavy coat on!
Indeed, much of our childhood was spent in the back and forth of these sibling skirmishes.
As a very little boy (about the time he also frequently asked us didn’t we wish he was twins…), he’d run in to my room where I’d be playing Barbies with my friends, his GI Joe in hand, and announce this was a raid.
I thought I was very funny and hid in the coat closet in our darkened house upon our family’s return from a weekend vacation, knowing Tommy would be the next one to come along, and then fell out at him when he opened the door (I actually did that to him several times over the years, scaring poor Tommy so badly that his face literally turned white and his hair stood up on end...finally our usually mild-mannered father threatened me with severe bodily harm if ever I did it again)!
Tommy would show my boyfriends embarrassing childhood pictures of me in the bathtub with other little kids, and I’d make his life less than pleasant when I was left in charge as babysitter.
Once when we were out at our grandparents’ house in Sag Harbor, I suggested a game of “Joan of Arc” - with me, of course, playing Joan. He happily obliged me, tying me to the driftwood pole stuck in the beach that was supposed to be used for mooring a small boat, heaping seaweed around my feet, and then left me there, telling me he was going for matches!
It wasn’t all childish squabbling and playing pranks on each other tho. We certainly had our good times as well, and I would say our shared childhood in a far simpler time than today was often almost magical...idyllic summer days spent Out East at our grandparents’ waterfront home; on family vacations to places like Oklahoma and the Okefenokee Swamp; both of us being pulled on a sled by our father over to Bohack’s for essentials during a blizzard and then building snow forts in our front yard; enjoying large family gatherings at the holidays; going to Scout meetings and choir practice and school events; weekend excursions to Nunley’s and Lollipop Farm, playing with our friends in the neighborhood; and just doing all the things that children did back then. Our bedrooms shared a common wall and we even developed a system of communication that involved all manner of complicated knocking patterns (SO complicated that the only one I remember now was the one that invited the other to come in the room...).
We took it all for granted tho, and often I thought he was just my pesky little brother, who I could easily do without, and he was known to accuse me of being too bossy and trying to be his “other mother,” saying he didn’t need me either!
However, we were both very wrong in that, and indeed, we did need each other...
As time went by and we grew up, our adversarial relationship finally diminished, and lo and behold, we actually became friends. Over the years that friendship grew to the point that we were each other’s ally and confidante, usually in contact with each other at least once a day. Usually we emailed, but we’d call frequently too, often just to “kibitz” as Tommy called it. In fact, these lengthy conversations during which we’d solve all the world’s problems (not to mention a few of our own…), talking about anything and everything in general, earned him the nickname of “King Kibitz.” Although both our busy schedules and the distance between us didn’t allow for as much actual visiting as either of us would like, Tommy never missed a special occasion and came to our house in Virginia for nearly every Thanksgiving and Christmas too, telling me that he really loved the Norman Rockwell look of our decorations and thought of time spent with our family in general as a “vacation”...and he sounded genuinely sincere when he said that too! The holidays this year just won’t be the same without him…
Some of you may have stories to tell about Tommy’s rescues with the fire department...well, he saved me more than once over the years with laughter. He had a wicked sense of humor (often with a manner of delivery that didn’t alert others to the fact he was saying these things...), and he was often “right on” in terms of what he thought was funny too! It was impossible not to laugh at what he was saying, no matter how inappropriate laughter seemed at the time, and thus maybe we both got a reputation as “those Barnes kids,” who laughed at times when it just didn’t seem funny (until much later, of course, when really, it kinda was...).
Speaking of rescues, Tommy had several close calls himself over the years, and I think maybe those were what started to clue me in to just how much I really did need my pesky little brother after all. When he was about 5 years old and supposed to be napping, he was instead playing with a toy gun bought at the 5 and 10 cents store. Its little plastic bullet got stuck in the gun, so Tommy’s solution to that was to put it in his mouth and suck it out...the bullet came loose and lodged in his lungs, nearly killing him. Our parents rushed him to the hospital and he then spent several long hours in the operating room, while the doctor tried to fish the bullet out without having to do surgery to retrieve it (ultimately he was successful, btw, and the doctor later told our parents he made a tie tack out of the bullet). Meanwhile, I was at our neighbors’ house while this was going on, and I remember being just SO scared for him...
Another time a “rescue” was needed was when he was about 12 and nearly drowned at the ocean beach out in Sagaponack. We had been at the beach with our father that day, but I’d already gone up to lie on the sand when a rip tide came up. Daddy and Tommy were out in the water a ways, and when they tried to come in, the current was such that instead they stepped off the sandbar they’d been on. Daddy was a pretty strong swimmer and might have been able to make it in by himself, but Tommy never would have...I remember my absolute terror as I stood on the beach with the rest of the people there that day, watching the lifeguards rush out to get them...
9/11 was another day I thought perhaps I would lose my brother. He never wanted Mom and me to worry about him when he traveled so he always shared his itinerary with us, and thus when the planes hit the Twin Towers and crashed in that field in Pennsylvania, I knew he was in an airplane himself that morning, flying home from a business trip. In fact, his was the last plane that landed in Charlotte, NC, that day, and it then took hours before he was finally able to get through to Mom and me to let us know he was on the ground and OK...
Finally, on the day several years ago when he went to the hospital because of that pulmonary clot he had, he called me on my cell phone. He told me that after not feeling well for a couple of days, he had been to the doctor and they wanted him to go immediately to the ER. They’d offered an ambulance to take him there, but Tommy (always thinking he knew better) had declined that, and was instead driving himself. I was upset at him, telling him that just because he drove the ambulance in the fire department all those years did NOT mean he should do it when HE was the patient! He was stubborn that way tho, and indeed, it turned out he was right that time...he got there, and he was eventually “fine”...
Indeed, all those times he somehow got lucky and it all turned out OK. Perhaps God knew that Tommy had a bigger purpose in life, one he had not yet fulfilled. Of course we in his “real” family always knew just how wonderful Tommy was to all of us over the years, but what we did not know was that he was apparently that way to EVERYONE, making them all feel like “family” too! Then we went to his memorial service in Orlando and person after person came up to tell a story of something Tommy had done for them...sometimes just a small gesture of kindness, but often something truly remarkable. Since that time, the stories have continued as well! Talk about hiding your light under a bushel tho - we had no idea of some of the good works Tommy accomplished over the course of his lifetime because he didn’t always talk about them - he just DID them. What a wonderful example to us all as we travel down life’s highways...not only stop to smell the roses, but if you can do something along the way to even briefly improve the life of someone else, then best do that too, as Tommy did. For we never ever truly know when our luck will run out, do we?
Unfortunately, after a lifetime of rescuing others, and a few close calls himself, Tommy finally (but SO unexpectedly...) came to a point where his luck did run out...who knows what the outcome would have been had he allowed one of us to stay with him while he was recuperating from the minor surgery he had the week before he died. Would it have made a difference if someone was in the house with him that day, or even if he had had a phone in reach? We will never know...but it troubles me so to think that after a lifetime of rescuing others, when he himself needed it most, such help did not come for him...or perhaps it did. Tommy celebrated his 50th birthday just a few days before he died, and he spoke often of how he just knew that the next 50 years were going to be the start of something great for him. Little did we all know just what that was to be however...but I take comfort from the knowledge that his friends who found him that night told me he had a slight smile on his face and his arms were outstretched, as tho he was greeting someone he knew. I certainly hope so...
It is fitting that his final memorial should take place in this beautiful room, the sanctuary of this church in which so many important events in our family occurred. Our parents were married here. Tommy and I were both baptized here. And of course, there were the family funerals...in fact, the second to last stained glass window on the right is in memory of our grandparents, and the pew Bibles have our father’s name in them. It is indeed just the right place to remember and honor the life and times of my dearly beloved baby brother...
Rest in peace, Tommy...we will (and already do) dearly miss you as we continue on life’s journey, but know the day will come when we will all be together again. Until then - in the arms of the angels, may you find some comfort there...
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